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Louie Provenza
Character Information Provenza is a long-tenured member of the LAPD with nearly 40 years served. He has several divorces in his past and pays alimony to all his ex-wives (one of whom he married and divorced twice). He has children as well as grandchildren, though none of them have been seen on the show. His closest friend is Flynn. Being the oldest member of both the Priority Homicide Division and the Major Crimes Division, he is often threatened with being forced to retire, though he has sworn to die on his post; as part of the divorce settlement with his first wife, he is to share his pension with her when he retires and he doesn't want to give her the satisfaction. Though Provenza often comes off as cynical or even lazy at times, he has a great deal of experience and sometimes notices small case-breaking details. In episode Turn Down, he and Flynn were on a drive-along with Buzz Watson on his first day as a reserve officer. Relationships * Lauren - ' Lauren works at a high end department store and is much younger than Provenza. They fall in love in early Season 5. * '''Patrice - ' A woman he meets during season 3 of Major Crimes. The two have an ongoing relationship and Patrice seems to care for and match wits with him like almost no one can. In season 4, they move in together though Provenza pays Rusty and his friend TJ to put all of his stuff in storage and keep it from Patrice who he told he was giving it to Goodwill. Provenza ends up being pleased with the setup Patrice did for their new place even without his input and she reveals she already know the truth from Rusty and TJ. However, she understands his doing so in case they don't work out and did the same with her stuff. In The Jumping Off Point, Provenza plans a big dinner to propose to Patrice only to have Andy accidentally ruin the surprise for him. He then begins avoiding Patrice until she confronts him about it, telling him she wasn't sure whether or not to take Andy seriously and set things up for them to have dinner that night together and made sure it would be somewhere perfect if the dinner turned out to be "memorable" for them. Provenza asks Patrice if she's ready for that "dinner" and she tells him that she definitely is and asks if he is. Provenza tells her "I do" before emphasizing his point. Wives Provenza has been married four times. During reconstructions undertaken by the squad, Provenza names each doll after one of his ex-wives. A notable example was seen in the episode Out of Focus where he throws them off a balcony in order to see how a victim committed apparent suicide. His first wife was named Liz. He notes that she always used to correct his grammar (Out of Focus). He reveals to Pope that he is adamant not to retire and would rather die on his post, due to a divorce settlement he had with his first wife in which he would share his pension with her and is reluctant to do so because he doesn't want to give her the satisfaction (Dial M for Provenza). Pope sympathizes with him since he made a similar arrangement with his own first wife. Provenza's second wife was named Heather. She was also his fourth wife since he married her again. His third wife was named Sharon and he notes that she was the one that always had to be right (Out of Focus). In The Jumping Off Point, Provenza plans to propose to his girlfriend Patrice and it is indicated at the end that they get engaged. Trivia *Provenza's first name wasn't revealed until Season 5 when it was mentioned by his former partner, George Andrews. Before that, he was always referred to as simply "Provenza" or "Lieutenant". In The Last Word, he mentions that even his grandchildren call him "Lieutenant". In "Frozen Assets", Rusty learns his first name is Louie and Provenza tells him that "unless you outrank me or I divorced you, my name is Lieutenant." *Whenever the PHD or MCD does reconstructions with dummies, Provenza names each doll after one of his ex-wives. *Provenza has been sent to sensitivity training at least once. *Provenza hates it when people sit or put things on his desk. *He is the last person of his police academy class to still be on active duty. *In "Final Cut" of Major Crimes, he buys the Major Crimes squad room a new high-tech printer after their old one breaks but makes everyone pay for using it. Following his buying of the printer, the squad members can occasionally be seen putting money in a jar after using his printer. In one episode Assistant Chief Taylor uses it himself (though he doesn't pay for it citing his rank) saying its the best printer in the LAPD. *When in uniform, Provenza wears seven service stripes on his uniform. Each stripe represents five years of service in the LAPD meaning he has served for 35-39 years. *Provenza has developed a close relationship with murder witness Rusty Beck. He advises and looks out for the young man, even behind his back at times when he feels it to necessary. In return, Rusty sees him as someone he can turn to when he needs advice and doesn't want Sharon to know. Provenza has only been shown to betray Rusty's confidence once when got worried about why Rusty was asking about his mother's recent arrest history and checked up on his jail visit with her. What he discovered alarmed him so much he informed the rest of the squad and Sharon out of concern for the young man. Most notably, when Rusty admitted he was gay to the squad, Provenza's reaction was the one he was most worried about besides Sharon's. Like everyone else, Provenza showed no surprise (though everyone tried to pretend they were) and he told Rusty that the only thing the revelation causes them to think about him is that he trusts them more and they will trust him more in return. Rusty still pulls him aside to make sure Provenza is personally okay with the revelation. Provenza, who has been shown to be politically incorrect in the past, informs Rusty that he honestly doesn't care that he's gay, just as long as he's not flamboyant. He lets him know that being gay is the one thing he can't give him advice on however and leaves it at that. When moving he hires Rusty and his friend TJ to move his stuff into storage and lie to Patrice for him. *At first Provenza had a rocky relationship with Captain Sharon Raydor when she first joined the squad due to her time in FID and him wanting her job. His dislike for her only increased when she started making deals with criminals rather than sending them to trial. It nearly causes him to retire, but she manages to reach something of an understanding with him and he changes his mind. Following this, while he still doesn't like her, he at least supports her and respects her while Sharon defers to his expertise much of the time, causing them to develop a good working relationship. In one notable instance, Provenza stands up for Sharon to Rusty when the young man makes her cry with his accusations of her not caring and wanting to get rid of him, saying that he doesn't like Sharon, but even he knows how much she cares about him. Provenza is shown to be disgusted with the young man's actions and his words cause Rusty to realize just how big of a mistake he made. Over time, Provenza's relationship with Sharon gets better to the point that he occasionally calls her "Sharon" instead of "Captain" and supports her when she needs help. *In There's No Place Like Home, Provenza's refusal to get glasses nearly causes him to be reassigned to desk duty as he's unable to shoot a good target without them anymore and can't qualify on his gun. Near the end of the episode, he's stunned by the effect of a suspect's glasses and later uses them to qualify on the range, getting a perfect target. Following this, he gets glasses which he can be occasionally seen wearing, though he doesn't seem to need them at all times. Most notably, he wore them when he killed Wade Weller, allowing him to shoot Wade in the head despite the distance he was at and the fact that Wade was using a hostage as a shield. *In The Jumping Off Point, Provenza plans another engagement despite the failures of his many marriages and is angry when Andy ruins the surprise, telling Andy that when he plans to propose to someone, he intends to do it himself, not have Andy do it for him, *In Risk Assessment, a suspect was arrested for using a victim's credit card but it simply turns out he found the card and was trying to buy his children a Christmas gift as he didn't have any money for it. After hearing the man's story, Provenza has Tao buy the man the gift he wanted for his children on Provenza's own credit card. Category:Characters Category:Major Crimes Division Category:LAPD Category:The Closer Category:Major Crimes Category:Robbery-Homicide